


back when i was living for the hope of it all

by benditlikepress



Series: folklore [3]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Hurt/Comfort, letter writing is my strongest 13x24-17x01 headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25861006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benditlikepress/pseuds/benditlikepress
Summary: When Ziva and Tali have a clear-out of an old wardrobe, Ziva finds an envelope with her name written on the front.
Relationships: Ziva David/Anthony DiNozzo
Series: folklore [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1853221
Comments: 26
Kudos: 59





	back when i was living for the hope of it all

**Author's Note:**

> this is my 30th tiva fic on ao3, all written in the past year! (I wrote some 10 years ago aged 13 on a different-named ff.net account but we do not speak of those) thanks so much everyone for reading and leaving kudos and comments and sending private messages. it means the world xxx
> 
> i edited this while sleep deprived so apologies for that
> 
> title is from august (again)

Ziva had arrived in Paris with just the clothes on her back, and after years of travelling with no bags out of necessity it had taken her a while to procure enough possessions to need any kind of storage space.

After a weekend shopping trip ostensibly for new shoes for Tali (who knew children’s feet grew so fast?) Ziva had had the stark realisation that she had no clothes for hot weather, and had taken the less than enthusiastic girl around a couple of shops while she purchased some lighter fabrics. She’d not faced unpacking until now, aware of the fact that she was well and truly out of room in the small corner of the wardrobe she’d commandeered upon her arrival.

Tony had told her to clear out the rest of that half of the wardrobe to make room for herself, and he’d said it in such a nonchalant way that Ziva had been ill-prepared for the sight of the piled boxes and files and junk she ended up encountering when she pulled the hanging jackets out of the way. She’d always been suspicious of the levels of cleanliness he seemed to keep his old apartment in DC at, and maybe now she was learning the last of his secrets.

She’d left Tali in her bedroom playing after school, but it didn’t take too long staring at the overwhelming task in front of her until the door creaked open. Tali still liked to be around Ziva as much as she could.

She poked her head around the door and tried to walk in before being stopped in her tracks by the box Ziva had unintentionally placed in front of her path.

“I am sorry, ahava. Here.” She leaned up on her knees and took Tali’s hands, helping her guide her feet over the box and into the room.

“What are you doing?”

“I am trying to have a clear-out. Do you know what that is?”

“When you get rid of your old toys?”

“Yes, exactly. I am clearing out some of our old things that we do not need anymore so I can make some room for new things.”

“Can I help?”

“That would be great if you did. Here, I am pulling out all of these boxes and seeing what is important in them. Can you help me get them out?”

Tali sat down dutifully at Ziva’s side, leaning forward fully to pull one of the boxes out. She wobbled and the boxes began to slip until Ziva grabbed them carefully, holding the other ones up so Tali could retrieve the box she’d aimed for. The concentrated expression on her face was so distinctly Tony that it made Ziva take pause. She remembered the first time she’d seen it: Tali was barely a toddler, and Ziva had practically frozen in place as she’d seen such a perfect echo of him coming from a girl who looked so much like herself.

Now, Tali looked up at her with a forming grin.

“It’s daddy’s movies.”

“Yes, I think a lot of it is.”

Tony could be something of a purist when it came to streaming services, watching them but refusing to throw away physical copies of anything he could watch on them. They'd reached a compromise that he would limit the amount of movies he had on display at any one time, and Ziva had apparently found the consequences of that piled haphazardly into boxes and tucked away forgotten. She’d never realised there were quite so many Bond films made until she saw the evidence stacked in front of her.

She began pulling the boxes out onto the bedroom floor, placing them like a moat around herself and Tali while she moved the bottom objects around in the cupboard.

"I was looking for that!" Tali suddenly exclaimed with wonder, and Ziva tilted her head out of the darkness to find her holding The Little Mermaid triumphantly in the air.

"Ah, I knew it had to be somewhere! All the time we just had to ask daddy, yes? Although, he would probably not be able to find it in all of these boxes."

“Daddy calls this the junk cupboard.”

“Oh, does he indeed?”

The two of them continued sorting (Ziva sorted while Tali pulled everything out of the boxes and messily re-stocked them) until they finally reached the bottom of the wardrobe.

Before sorting anymore Ziva stood up and hung her clothes up inside so she could see the space they were working with.

Tali was quiet on the floor until Ziva rejoined her, papers on her lap.

"What are you looking at now?"

“Is this your name?” Tali held an envelope right up to Ziva’s face, and she pulled it away to look at it properly. Sure enough, there it was: written right in the centre, small as anything, in Tony’s recognisable rushed handwriting.

“That’s right, that is my name.”

"What is it? Is it a bill?"

Ziva smiled at the innocent sincerity of the question, apparently the only type of envelope Tali had any knowledge of.

"Do you know, Tali, I have no idea. I will have to save it for your father when he gets home from work, these are all of his things so I think he will know."

"Is it a surprise?"

"Maybe. But do you know what would surprise _him_?"

"What?"

"If we packed all of this away again as tidily as possible."

Even at the age of six, Tali’s ability to roll her eyes was becoming legendary. Still she helped, clumsily piling objects back into boxes as instructed and stopping on occasion to pull something out to look at it again.

Ziva packed away the movies and some of the files she knew to be important: apartment documents and insurance and travel documents and bank details. She placed a pile she was unsure of on the bed for Tony to check, and folded the envelope with her name on in half. She tossed it around in her hand a couple of times, debating, before placing it in her pocket.

* * *

They ate dinner early when Tony got home, Tali tired after a day at school and the envelope burning a hole in Ziva's back pocket. Bath-time was an exhausted nightmare on Tali's part, it seeming to be the one part of the day at which she was perennially young.

They put her to bed together, not a common-place occurrence, but she could be clingy when she was over-tired. She settled down quickly, though, watching them through squinted eyes as they took turns to kiss her forehead and left the room.

Tali was sleeping better these days. Tony and Ziva were too, as a result. The benefits of a full night’s sleep after years without one couldn’t be overstated, and they once again found themselves agreeing to an early night in the way that would’ve humiliated them when they were younger.

The letter inexplicably slipped her mind at some point after they retired to the sofa for the evening, Tony’s hands wandering up her back as they watched a French movie that Ziva was still a little surprised he didn’t need the subtitles to understand.

In spite of the promises of an early night, perhaps predictably things escalated and Ziva found herself on top of him, his shoulders pressed against the leather arm-rest and the light from the lamp next to them making his face glow.

They didn’t get too far without settling down again, one too many close calls in the past couple of months making them more conservative in the places they were willing to get heated. The decision, like so many others they made these days, was wordless. A signal of how far they’d come in being able to understand each other.

When they did eventually go to bed a while later, Ziva was filled with the comforting warmth that often accompanied a night like this – reminders of where she’d been, where _they’d_ been, not so long ago flicking through her head in a misty tone. It was that that brought her back to the matter at hand as they entered the bedroom and she saw the contents of the wardrobe on the bed and thought of the envelope still in her pocket.

“Crap, I forgot you were doing this today.” Tony looked down at the pile of papers Ziva had left on his side of the bed. “Don’t suppose you want to look through them for me?”

“I have already looked through them once, it is the least you can do.”

Tony looked again at the files, and with an air like he’d made a decision, grabbed them in his outstretched arm and manoeuvred them to the dressing table.

“Tomorrow. I need to get out of these clothes.”

He'd only got as far as removing his shoes and the when he got home, shirt crinkled from where they'd been curled on the sofa. Ziva continued to watch him as he began to undo his tie and place it over the wardrobe door handle.

He met her eye with a mischievous smile. "Care to help, Miss David?"

It wasn't why she'd been staring but she approached him anyway, melting against his lips. His hands lingered at the bottom of her shirt as her own came to undo his buttons, but then she caught a hold of herself and stepped out of his touch. His hands reached out instinctively as she raised her eyebrows.

"I know, I need a shower."

"That is not what I am thinking."

“What?”

“I know your secret.”

Once upon a time Ziva was certain those words would’ve struck fear through Tony. Instead she got a small frown of confusion as he undid his watch.

“Alright, it was me that ate the last of the chips.”

“Oh, I already knew that. You are not as sneaky as you would like to be. No, I meant ‘the junk cupboard’.”

“Ohhhh. That one’s been good for years.”

“Here all this time you had me convinced you were actually clean and organised. In spite of perceptions.”

“Alright, I’m gonna ignore that. Did you clear it out?”

“Yes – although when I said I was going to, it is safe to say I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.”

“Yeah, sorry. I guess stuff kinda piled up in there, huh? Still, happens when you live in the city. Not enough room to stretch out.”

“You cannot blame Paris for that mess, Tony.”

“Worth a shot. You find anything worth keeping?”

“Not especially. Although-” Ziva listed the folded envelope from her pocket and placed it in front of her. “Tali found this in one of your boxes." Tony's gaze paused at the object before he slowly reached out and touched it with his fingers. "I was not sure if.. well, I thought I would ask you what it was."

"I forgot about that. Where was it?"

"She said it was underneath some DVDs."

"I must've hidden it."

"What is it, Tony?"

"It's.. I wrote it, a couple of years ago. I knew I wouldn't be able to send it - I didn't even know what country you were in - but I just." He hesitated. "I don't know, I needed to."

Tony continued getting undressed and Ziva watched him carefully as she saw things wash over his expression that she hadn’t been expecting. Something a little like anxiety. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting to be in the envelope, but she hadn’t expected such a reaction.

"When did you write this?"

He’d turned away while folding his trousers and turned back to look at her, eyebrows raised in an attempt at nonchalance. "A few months after Cairo. Before your birthday, that year."

Ziva mulled over the implications. The idea that he’d wanted to write to her back then, so early after they’d last seen each other. So long before they’d finally got a chance to be together.

The silence stretched out between them as though Tony knew what she was musing as he stood there in his underwear. She met his eye again and it cracked, finally, earning her a comforting smile as he put his clothes away.

“Can we open it?”

“I don’t really.. wanna read that.” He was nodding as he said the words, his expression so juxtaposed to his voice. “You can if you want to.”

“If you are not comfortable, then..”

“No. I want you to read it.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah. Might – well, I don’t know. I wrote it for you, you should read it. I just don’t know if I can myself.”

“The contents is upsetting for you?”

“It’s not that. I guess I just hadn’t thought about it for a while. I remember how I was when I wrote it, I don't like going over that stuff much."

"Why?"

That, strangely, seemed to stump him for a moment. He ran a hand through his hair. "Because.. because it sucked, Ziva. It was hard. I know you don't like thinking about it either."

"No, that is true. But sometimes it is necessary, yes? Sometimes you need to address feelings so you can process them."

He looked at her. "I want you to read it. I do. I might need a little more time myself."

"That's OK."

Ziva thought back to how he was when they first met: how he could bend himself into a pretzel to avoid getting caught up in a conversation that was vulnerable or revealed things that weren't on his terms. Neither of them were like that anymore. He was honest, and open, and vulnerable. The week they'd spend together in Israel all those years ago was the most she'd ever felt anyone allow her to see the whole of them that they'd normally restrict from view. What was sticking him now wasn't the bravado and self-protection it had been back then. If anything, Ziva suspected it might be the opposite.

And it wasn't as though he never spoke about his feelings during that time. He had done, often, though usually he orientated conversation around Tali and Ziva, stumbling through his words a little when the focus was directly on him. That he was willing to be like this at all - to show her that struggle, was something Ziva didn't take for granted. It encouraged her to do the same.

“Ziva,” he approached her and his expression was comforting again now, one of his hands coming to her cheek. She wondered what he’d seen on her own face. “Really. I don’t mind you reading it. So long as you won't use it to..."

"What?"

"I don't feel that way anymore. And I understand everything. Don't use it as a reason to beat yourself up."

The warning, kind-hearted and sincere and oft-repeated as it was, sent a little jolt of anxiety through her. “I won’t.”

“If you let me read your journals it’s the least I can do, right?”

“You have only read the couple I have with me. When Bishop sends the others, though, I will let you read them.”

“Well, I can’t wait for that.” His tone was lighter as he said the words but he was fidgety and nervous, running a hand through his hair a few times as he glanced around the room. “Alright, I think I’m gonna get in the shower.”

“OK.”

He smiled with closed lips as he went into the en-suite, leaving Ziva with the letter in her hands and a strange nervousness swimming in her stomach at its contents.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, feet flat against the floor and back straight in a show of some kind of formality as she ran her finger underneath the seal to open it. His writing was small and cramped on the paper, scrawled and messy as though he’d been writing under bad lighting.

**_I don’t know why I’m doing this. I know I can never send it, but I really need to talk to you right now. Guess this is the best I can do._ **

**_I think I saw you a couple of days ago. I can't be sure, especially because I seem to imagine your face everywhere I look, even now, but you turned your head away so quickly I'm certain._ **

**_That's reassuring, at least. You're alive. Still two arms and two legs. It’s your birthday soon - I don’t know if you even know that. Or probably you do, actually, and you think I’m an idiot now. It’s not like you’re on the moon._ **

**_I know you’re checking in. Thanks for your letter. I know it’s been a while since it arrived but I wish I could reply for real so you'd know I'd got it. And that I understand._ **

**_You were right, what you said about having things on my chest in Cairo. Things were weird, I know. I did my best to say everything I wanted you to hear but the more time passes the more I think of things I should’ve mentioned. It’s been months and I can’t stop thinking about it. I try not to regret not doing more – not saying more, but it’s hard not to. I wish I’d had more time to prepare. I got so bogged down in physically being there with you that I forgot half of what had been on my mind. I don’t know that in all the time I’d been searching for you I’d ever stopped to think what would happen when I actually found you. Even less that we’d have to say goodbye so quickly after finding each other again._ **

**_Sometimes I feel naive for trusting you like this. I'm breaking every one of my rules staying away - I don't think there's anyone else I'd trust if they told me it was the right thing to do leaving them to do this alone. Ironically the one person I trust is the one I don't think I could ever leave._ **

**_But we've been here before, haven't we? I know you wouldn't be pleased if you knew but I have a bag packed just in case you ever need me. A dumb, selfish part of me almost hopes you do._ **

**_I can already hear your response to that. Calling me an idiot (I know). Telling me for the 85th time that you can look after yourself (I know that too). But then I remember that panic attack you had in Cairo and maybe I'm an idiot for wanting to be there but I'm an idiot for not being there too._ **

**_You don’t need to tell me: I know why I’m not. At least one reason. She's asleep, for real, finally, after a really crappy few days, but that hasn't helped. If anything, it's made all of this worse. No distractions._ **

**_The real reason I'm writing is because I'm angry today. I'm so, so angry. I'm angry that I feel bile in my throat every time I put Tali to sleep. Angry that you hid all of this from me. Angry that people are trying to hurt you._ **

**_I’m mad too. I’m so mad that all of this going on and I’ve just got to sit here and act like it’s not happening. I've never been mad like this before. There's dots in my vision. None of us got a say in any of this – it’s just been forced on us and we’ve got to deal with it to survive._** **_How is that fair? How is it fair on Tali that someone should want to cause her pain like that? How is it fair on you that you’re out there on your own, AGAIN? How am I just supposed to sit here and accept that one day I might get a message from a guy I barely know telling me you're dead, for real this time, and we're never going to see you again? And we're just supposed to carry on, on the off-chance it doesn't happen - that you'll open the door tomorrow and announce that this thing I don't really understand is over? How will any of us be able to trust that's true, after all that's happened?_**

**_I’m trying to think through it all and I can’t make it sink in. Any of it. It feels like someone else’s life. Do you feel like that? Actually, scratch that. I’m sure this all feels more than real to you._ **

**_I feel guilty for feeling all of this. It’s not like you get a choice in what you’re doing – you just have to deal with it, every day, while I’m sitting here perfectly safe and angry._ **

**_It isn’t the first time we’ve been somewhere like this but it’s the first time I’ve felt seriously, fully, useless. Like I couldn’t help even if I wanted to. That hurts more than anything else. And that’s why I’m sat here at 2am writing you a letter I know you can’t read to try and stop myself from freaking out entirely. Or, any more than I already have._ **

**_I wonder if you get much time to think about the past or if you're too busy trying to deal with the present. It's all I think about. I have so many regrets now in the time we've known each other I could be here all day. Should've kissed you earlier. Should've told you I love you earlier. Should've had Tali earlier. Should've done any of this the right way._ **

**_Maybe I have too much time on my hands._ **

Ziva stopped reading then. Folded the letter over and placed it down on the bed firmly, replacing her hands in her lap. It felt voyeuristic, somehow: reading his words when he wasn’t here. Even if that had been his intention, for her to read it without him, there was something about reading his innermost thoughts knowing he was in the next room that had her panic levels rising.

The letter was erratic – clearly written by someone who hadn’t been sleeping. She wondered if that was a regular occurrence.

He'd warned her not to blame herself but she knew it was natural to, at least a little. Things she couldn't change now, about Tali's birth and the first years of her life, would have permanent consequences. Though she had no real say over what happened later with Sahar her fingerprints were still over it, and reading about Tony's anger and fears was evidence of the effects of it going far beyond what she herself was privy to. She knew it still affected him sometimes, even with his insistence that everything in the letter was in the past.

He knew the answer now, too, about whether she'd been thinking about the past. It would haunt her in the way it did him, a self-proclaimed life free of regrets coming back to haunt her when she thought she might have jeopardised her only chance of a happy and peaceful life because she was scared. Not that what ultimately transpired was a direct result of that, of course. But it was hard on the worst nights to remember it wasn't her fault.

She moved the letter onto her pillow and climbed out of bed, hoping to even herself out as she walked through the apartment.

Tali's door was open a sliver as they always left it, and when she pushed it open she found the little girl fast asleep facing the wall, Kelev tucked tightly in her crossed arms.

Ziva lingered longer than usual, watching the rise and fall of her breath before turning out the nightlight. She was reluctant still as she walked back out of the room, closing the door fully behind her.

Tony was out of the shower, wet hair and clad in boxers, when she got back to the bedroom. He met her eye with a nod but didn't look away as you'd expect someone to after a greeting, his eyes lingering on her with an eyebrow raised.

"You turn off Tali's light?"

"Yes. Fast asleep."

"That was quick. You wore her out this afternoon, huh?"

"I did not think it possible."

Tony made an amused noise of agreement as he turned away from her, walking to his side of the bed. Ziva could feel the nervous tension in the air between them, absurd in its presence after all of these years.

“Tony..”

“Hm?”

He was sat on the edge of the bed rubbing his head with a towel, and turned towards her marginally but not enough to look her in the eye.

She used her knees to climb across the bed and stopped behind him, bent on her shins. Leaned forward and pressed herself against his back, wrapping her arms across his chest and letting her face rest between his shoulder-blades.

“Don’t apologise.”

“I am not going to.”

“No?”

“No.” Ziva kissed the place where her lips rested before turning her face so her cheek lay there. “I love you, Tony. So much.”

“I love you too. More than...” He phased out as she continued to hold herself against him for a moment. His hands came up to cover her arms, squeezing them tightly.

“I have not finished it.”

“No?”

She pulled herself away from his back and moved across the bed so she could face him, registering the tone in his voice and wanting to see his physical response. “I wanted to read the rest with you. You can say no - it is just a thought."

He thought it over for a moment, but the instinctive anxiety he’d expressed before had faded in the hot water of the shower. "No, you're right. We should read it together. I’m sorry.”

“Why are _you_ apologising?”

She sought out his touch again, covering his fingers with her own where they were picking at a loose stitch on the bedding. “For not.. talking about all of that. You're so honest with me and sometimes I feel like I hold back more than I should. I know you think that too."

"Not in so many words. I know you are trying, Tony. I do not expect you to be something you are not."

He met her eye. "This _is_ who I am, Ziva. I want to be honest with you about this stuff. About everything. It's just.. God, I don't know why I find this one subject so difficult."

"I know why you do." A beat of silence passed between them, both of them thinking inevitably about his words. The desire to protect her that he was never quite able to quash. “It did not feel right, reading it without you.”

“Sorry. Just wasn’t expecting it.”

“Why were you so nervous for me to read it? Because you were upset when you wrote it?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I guess I just haven’t thought about all of that in a little while. All came flooding back to me.”

“That’s alright.”

"I felt like an idiot stood in the shower knowing you were reading it."

"I understand. It is a vulnerable feeling to be around somebody when they are reading something you wrote."

"I'm not much of a writer. Not like you. Maybe I could have McGee beat, but that isn't hard."

"A 15 year grudge, Tony? Really? You and I both know everything he said was true." Tony’s eyes were glinting when they met her own, mischief hanging behind them. “What do you think?”

“C’mon then, let’s read it.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah. Kinda curious what I had to say, anyway.”

Tony sat down with his back against the pillows as though preparing for something. After a second of hesitation Ziva turned on her side to lean facing him, keen to measure what he was thinking as he read. She thought this might make him uneasy but rather he met her eye as one of his hands reached out to rest on the bare skin of her bent legs. She covered it with her own hands, playing with his little finger as he lifted it into her touch.

"Alright, where did you get to?"

Ziva scanned the letter, still watching him out of the corner of her eye as she pointed near the bottom of one side of the page.

**_I realise I’m basically just having an imaginary conversation with myself now but I know what you’d say to that too._ **

“What did I say?” Tony asked himself quietly as he flipped the page over. “Ah. I have too much time on my hands.”

**_You’d say that isn’t true, because I spend all my time with Tali. And don’t get me wrong – I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired in my life as I am after a full day alone with her. But that doesn’t mean that I can sleep when I get into bed. It feels empty and weird and I know we’ve never actually lived together before outside of the occasional hotel room but I imagine you everywhere like you belong here already._ **

**_I know it’s dumb. I should be used to it by now, but I can’t stop thinking about you for a second. It’s usually hard to deal with but it’s been unbearable since I saw you the other day. Or I think I did – I’m sure I could recognise you from hundreds of yards without a second thought. I've seen you once in the last 3 years and I remember everything about your face. Every single thing. The way it's reflected in our daughter's - OUR daughter's._ **

**_Do you remember what she sounds like? She's grown up so much. Her English is getting better by the day but I don't know if I've actually taught her anything or if she's remembering things she got from you._ **

**_She loves movies, I know that for sure. It’s not from me, though: I put on Tangled and she calls out your name. It’s the only time she does now, she’s finally getting the hang of calling for me instead._ **

Tony hesitated over the sentence, his voice dipping. Ziva sensed his reluctance to revisit that kind of sentiment – remembering a time when it was preferable for Tali to not be thinking of her mother when she got upset, owing to the distance she was away.

“The movies.. that was all Tali.”

“Yeah?” His tone changed as he looked up to meet Ziva’s eyes.

“I had always hoped she would be like you. But if you ever try to remind me of that, I will deny it.”

“My lips are sealed.”

He looked back down at the letter.

**_Nobody ever told me how hard it is raising kids. Or at least I never paid enough attention when they did. I always wanted them – I don’t know if I ever told you that. I guess this isn’t exactly how I saw it happening._ **

**_She’s been sick the last week - nothing bad, but enough that she was crying at night and sleeping all day. I don't think I slept at all the first two nights. I couldn't stop staring at her. The feeling of being useless, like you can't even help your own child._ **

**_Then I thought about how you must be feeling that every day. As much as I'm thinking I don't know what's going on with you, I can't imagine how it is having to be apart from her after being with her for her whole life. I'm doing my best, for her and for you. It's hard._ **

He paused again and looked Ziva in the eye, though whether he was checking on her or looking for something for himself she wasn’t sure. She swallowed the emotion in her throat and gave him a little nod and smile of encouragement to continue.

**_The last few days might be the first time I've properly felt like a DAD, not just some abstract no-name protector you asked to watch over her. No, she's mine, she's really this piece of me who will look to me for the rest of my life for help. And she’s still struggling and finding it tough a lot of the time but I think that’s a good thing. Right? It’s good that things with us are finally starting to take the shape of something normal, not just a connection formed by ending up together. Because I did feel it – that connection. From the first time I laid eyes on her, it’s like I knew. Crazy what having a kid can do to you._ **

**_That’s why I hope this is just a bad day. Not a sign of something more serious building. Things are finally starting to fall into place for the two of us, the kind of normal we need to get by until you’re back. I wasn’t expecting to wake up feeling like this today._ **

**_I hope you're back soon so you can see for yourself. We’re doing OK, for the most part. Even if today I can hardly breathe._ **

The reality that if would take another three years hit both of them harshly as he said the words. He inhaled, under his breath but sharply. Even a phone-call would do at this point. Just some sign, proof that I'm not doing all of this for nothing.

**_I don't know how to end this. I know I can't send it. I should stop writing and try to get some sleep before she wakes up again, but god I’ve never needed to talk to you this badly. Maybe this’ll feel cathartic once I close the envelope. I hope it does._ **

**_I guess I'll just tell you I love you. More than anything. And I'm sorry I couldn't say that sooner._ **

Tony’s voice faded quietly as he reached the end of the letter, and his eyes caught on the final sentences as he finished. Ziva waited for him to speak first, watching him slowly move across the words and then fold the page in half.

She felt as though she could see him think as he stayed quiet. She was not going to rush him, understanding the way he was trying to find a place to start. She wondered how often he'd watched her in the same way, trying to think of the phrases that would accurately express something that was so utterly impossible to put into words.

"It's.. god it's all coming back to me." He shook his head, like a visceral reaction, and then inexplicably chuckled. "I was right when I said I hadn't been sleeping. That's an understatement, actually. I wasn't always as crazed as this sounds. I didn't know kids could he so loud until that week. Every bad night Tali's had since you got back, multiply that by 10 and add vomiting and coughing to the mix. And it's like.. nothing made sense. I was a cop for decades, y'know, the two of us have seen the worst kind of scumbags out there. In my head, I know that. But that day I just couldn't understand how someone could be doing that to you. To Tali."

He didn't say himself but it hung in the air, not needing the word. Ziva ran the pad of her finger under his eye - tears not quite falling, but threatening. She knew he thought it a comforting gesture. He did it with Tali to make her smile. He did with her, once or twice.

"I couldn't make it make sense. The pieces didn't fit. And then that made me angry. That you could want to escape all of this, only for someone to force you to give up your life. Again. That I could spend those years sleepwalking, and then I see you again only for this to happen. I know that sounds selfish, but.."

"It doesn't. That is not selfish."

He was still clutching the letter tightly between his fingers, and smirked a little sardonically at himself.

"It's weird,” he finally turned to meet her eyes, downcast, “I remember when I wrote this, I honestly thought I was being dramatic and I'd see you soon. I think I was a little in denial about everything you'd told me in Cairo, as if you were talking about some extreme worst-case scenario and everything would probably be fine." Ziva couldn't help but stroke his hair as he spoke, listening to the memory in his voice as he looked somewhere on the far wall. "In a way I'm glad about that, though."

"How so?"

"I don't know how I would've got through those first days without the belief you'd be back soon. That's what kept us both going - the hope you'd be back. If I'd known back then it would be 3 years, more.." Tony exhaled and his eyes glazed over a little. Ziva's hand refocused as it moved to his temple, rubbing the skin slowly and therapeutically. "I couldn't even think about the idea I'd never see you again. I know I talked about it a little but I never really thought about it properly. I think that's why I got like that sometimes. Not often, but once or twice at night. It got bottled up."

She hated the way her chest constricted as he talked. Not that it was because of her, but at the thought of what he’d been going through. He didn’t seem to have understood that whatever fear he’d felt about her when she was gone, she’d felt just as much about him. “It is alright that you felt angry, you know, Tony. Maybe it is not a fashionable emotion to have, but I get angry too. Angry when I think about all of that - how unfair and unjustified it was that you and Tali were put through that. And as for regrets, well.."

"You told me once you didn't want to live with them."

"I don't. I try hard to remember that: that regretting your past actions cannot change them. But it is not always so easy. I have loved you since I was 23 years old, and we are only just now getting our chance. I am not sure it would be possible to not feel regret about that."

It was strange that the admission should come so easily now. Still, though, Tony reacted by moving out of her touch to crane his head to press his lips to her hair. He tried to settle it on the pillow above her but she didn’t allow him to, tilting her chin upwards so she could look him in the eye as he spoke.

"I try not to regret it now. I think it's wasting more time. Thinking back to how we should've done it sooner when we should be making the most of it now."

"I understand. But the things you talk about in this - they still affect you now."

"That's probably inevitable."

"Yes, of course. But what I am trying to say is I wish you would talk more about that. You are always open, I know that. But I feel as though you stop short of comparing what you went through to what I did on a personal level. Not just how my situation affected you but how you yourself were affected. I know it was not the same, I know that. But that does not mean you did not suffer."

“God, Ziva. It’s not comparable at all. I don’t know how you could even read all of that and not think I was an idiot for being like that while you were off trying not to die every day.”

It was blunt, but true, assessment of the time they’d spent apart. Ziva frowned. “I mean it, Tony. Do not for one second think that any of this is not valid just because things were happening to me to at the same time as they were you. You had nobody to talk to about this. All of this was happening and you were alone."

"I wasn't alone." He said it simply but it sent Ziva's mind flashing, revisiting memories of panic attacks in back alleys and squeezing her eyes shut in busy rooms and clinging onto the memory of his voice. "I had Tali. Impossible to be alone when she's around. And I had Senior, which I was as shocked about as anyone, though obviously I couldn’t really talk to him about it. And I had you. I know not literally, but.."

The words struck deeper in Ziva’s chest than he likely realised. For as much as they'd vowed to be honest and open, and they were, Tony still struggled to be vulnerable sometimes about what had happened while she'd been gone. It wasn't that he was reluctant to tell to her, but whenever he did he'd get this strange note in his voice and his eyes would cast down a little. As though he was embarrassed - not at having felt those emotions, but at having felt them in comparison to Ziva. Like they were less valid, somehow, in the face of what was happening. And, equally, like he didn't want to upset her with them.

"Aht lo-levahd."

"I nailed that one, huh?" His smile was self-conscious, feeling exposed by his admission even knowing that it had been the same for Ziva. That memories, and hope, could keep you company. "Has anyone ever told you Hebrew is super hard to learn? Words change depending on who you're talking to and the word 'you' is like-"

Tony stopped talking as Ziva kissed him.

"Your Hebrew is good, Tony. I have always thought so."

"Yeah?"

"It is about effort. Yes? It always meant something to me to know that you had gone out of your way to learn something for my benefit."

"I wouldn't know. You already knew every language in existence when we met."

"I learned idioms for you."

"You.. well." Tony smiled. "I know language learning is hard so I won't say anything on that."

Ziva matched his smile, having said the sentence on purpose to amuse him. She wasn't sure she'd ever get her head around the ridiculous turns of phrase Tony subjected her to on a daily basis. At this point, it would probably disappoint him if she did.

"I understand what you mean, you know. I was the same. I always tried to keep the two of you in my mind to keep me company. And you were wrong.”

“About what?”

“You thought you could not help me, but you did. Every day you stayed with Tali, you helped more than you can imagine.”

The look he gave her was almost young and innocent, that small upturning of his lips meaning more than anything else.

“You know I’d do it all over again.”

The soft tone in his voice was so achingly familiar. The hand that came to rest on her waist sent her mind spiralling back to a handful of nights after she'd arrived in Paris where she'd wake up screaming and the first thing she'd feel would be his fingers there, lightly stroking her skin as he talked her down in that same voice. The type of patience she'd never got from anyone else. More than she'd ever deserved.

She kissed his shoulder and caught his eye, a furrow in his brow as though he wasn't sure what had inspired it. He never did see himself the way she did.

"All of this, I..” Ziva looked at the letter in his hands again as her own smile faded, resolving. “You are my partner, Tony, and I love you." So many different uses for that word over the years, always coming back to the same meaning. Loyalty and duty to each other, in all its forms. "I want to know these things. I want you to tell me everything about them, even if I have been the cause. What's worse than knowing I may have contributed is the thought that you would not tell me what you were feeling for fear of upsetting me. I think I am able to look rationally, with distance between it. I can promise you I will never use your feelings as an excuse to attack myself. They are yours and yours alone, and you should not have to worry about the consequences of feeling."

They'd had one or two conversations like this before since she'd got back, but it was one of the first times she felt truly confident in saying the words and knowing he'd take them on board. She was doing better now. He could see that.

"I do not want you to ever feel guilty for feeling something. I have spent so much over my life feeling guilty over my emotions - as though I am breaking a rule somehow, or encroaching on somebody else's life. I will not allow you to ever think that because of me. OK? I love you." She repeated the words but they were redundant really, a drop in the ocean of the things she felt for him. He seemed to understand that in the way his hand curled into hers, warm and big, stroking slowly along the ridges on her palm as he looked her in the eye.

"I want you to know everything I thought back then. I do. I know sometimes I find it weird to talk about, but I want you to know all of it. Like you've done with me."

For everything that she'd thought of their relationship back then - the fear she felt over what was happening in her chest, the possibilities she saw in the near and distant future, she never expected this. Never foresaw a situation in which she could be so open with someone, allow anyone to access the deepest thoughts that plagued her as she tried to get to sleep at night. There once was a time when she could barely bring herself to write them down in her journals, let alone say them out loud and leave herself vulnerable and open to judgement.

It was a testament to how well she knew him now. A type of trust that was innate but also cultivated through years of working together; of testing each others’ boundaries and listening and relying on one another when the going got tough. She knew he'd listen. She hoped he knew that about her too.

She kissed him then and he whispered the “I love you” against her lips as they separated. She pulled him into her and he pushed his back down the bed until he was lying flat, molding their bodies together.

Ziva felt any anxiety that had built during the conversation fade away as she listened to his breathing. Steady, as always.

She'd first heard the words in a similar pitch, whispered through tears into her ear as they lay half-asleep basking in the Beersheba sunrise. She'd never have believed then that all these years later it would still make her heart instinctively flip. Then again, she wouldn't have believed any of this at all. Happy. Together. In Paris. Daughter fast asleep down the hall.

“You said you’d do it again.”

“Of course I would. Tomorrow, if it’s what needed to happen.”

“Do you regret any of it?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Maybe I should rephrase that. Has it all been worth it? Yes. Would I do anything differently? Absolutely.”

“Like what?”

“I’d ask you out the first moment we met.”

Ziva smiled and shook her head. “I would not have advised that.”

“OK, maybe not the first time. Little awkward circumstances. When you came back to work with us, then. I’d have asked you then.”

“I would have said no. I would have resented what made me say it, but I would have.”

"Why would you have said no?"

"Because I knew you were trouble. Because I had a loyalty to Mossad. It was not until later - after we went undercover, that I allowed myself to entertain the idea of anything beyond sex with you. And even then I was.. I was reluctant to let myself be open to the idea. I could feel it growing more inside me, and I knew that eventually there would be a time when my loyalty to you would outgrow everything else. That scared me. I could not allow it to happen."

"Until it did."

"Until it did. And I was right - things were complicated after that, of course, but that loyalty I felt was stronger than anything I had encountered before. It was not drummed into me from birth, or forced upon me, like my loyalty to my father or Mossad. It was a different kind of duty, one that had made that side of me fearful. One that put me at odds with everything I had been raised to believe in. One that I still feel today."

"I think I always wanted to feel that. Growing up I never really.. had anything like that, where I felt like I was the priority. Not after mom. I didn't really know how to show that to another person and then I met you and I just felt this.. I don't know, just this desire to have your back and be there for you when the going got tough. Maybe that wasn't a strictly romantic thing but it was, too. And whenever I was in a position where I had to use it, nothing could stop me. So don't you go getting any ideas about running off on me ever again." Ziva wasn't entirely sure how they'd got here but she smiled at the caring mock in his final sentence, his finger pointed at her.

“I promise.”

“Good. I don’t think I have another one in me. I'm not as fit as I used to be."

"I like you like this. Although I can hardly listen to that complaint when I ask you every day if you want to come running with me."

"If I ever say yes when you wake me up at 5am to ask, that's a _real_ cry for help."

"Understood."

Ziva settled further into his side at the words, feeling his fingers dance along her ribcage. She closed her eyes and took a deep inhale.

“Aren’t you gonna get ready for bed?”

“Not right now.”

His arm around her tightened, his touch slowed, and Ziva thought back to all the other times they’d fallen asleep like this. One or both of them still dressed, on top of the covers, after hours of talking.

They'd known for a long time that they were never going to have a normal relationship. Ziva wasn't sure if either of them were even capable of that with anyone else, let alone with each other and their shared history. But the truth is, she preferred it like that. While she'd never pick to experience anything they'd gone through, all the hardships had done was affirm that this was where they were supposed to be. If you're willing to fight that hard for something, it's a sign of how much it means to you.

"Tony."

"Hmm."

"You never have to put on a show. Not for me. Not anymore."

"I know. Not that you ever bought it anyway. Used to drive me crazy."

She chuckled lightly against his skin. Remembered her own barely-masked frustration when he'd refuse to leave well enough alone. "Whenever you are ready. I want to hear whatever you want to tell me."

"I will. I promise."

"I am proud of you, you know."

"Proud of me? I have 10 years on you. More."

"Is that a rule? What am I supposed to be?"

"You're supposed to have a noble respect for me. Some might say awe."

"Fine. I respect you." She rolled her eyes knowing he'd sense it though he couldn't see, and he squeezed her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

"I'm proud of you too. You know that, right?"

"I know."

"And of us. We survived."

"We did.”

‘We still do’, she thought, as her breathing slowed.


End file.
